_ I remember how thrilled Vee gets when she first discovers that these new people in Honeysuckle Lodge are old friends of hers. I expect some poetical real estater wished that name on it. Anyway, it's the proper thing out here in Harbor Hills to call your place after some sort of shrubbery or tree. And maybe this little stone cottage effect with the green tiled roof and the fieldstone gate posts did have some honeysuckle growin' around somewhere. It's a nice enough shack, what there is of it, though if I'd been layin' out the floor plan I'd have had less cut-under front porch and more elbow room inside. However, as there are only two of the Rawsons it looked like it would do. That is, it did at first.
"Just think, Torchy," says Vee. "I haven't seen Marge since we were at boarding school together. Why, I didn't even know she was married, although I suppose she must be by this time."
"Well, she seems to have found a male of the species without your help," says I. "Looks like a perfectly good man, too."
"Oh, I'm sure he must be," says Vee, "or Marge wouldn't have had him. In fact, I know he is, for I used to hear more or less about Stanley Rawson, even when we were juniors. I believe they were half engaged then. Such a jolly, lively fellow, and so full of fun. Won't it be nice having them so near?"
"Uh-huh!" says I.
Not that we've been lonesome since we moved out on our four-acre Long Island estate, but I will say that young married couples of about our own age haven't been so plenty. Not the real folksy kind. Course, there are the Cecil Rands, but they don't do much but run a day and night nursery for those twins of theirs. They're reg'lar Class A twins, too, and I expect some day they'll be more or less interestin'; but after they've been officially exhibited to you four or five times, and you've heard all about the system they're being brought up on, and how many ounces of Pasteurized cow extract they sop up a day, and at what temperature they get it, and how often they take their naps and so on---- Well, sometimes I'm thankful the Rands didn't have triplets. When I've worked up enthusiasm for twins about four times, and remarked how cunnin' of them to look so much alike, and confessed that I couldn't tell which was Cecillia and which Cecil, Jr., I feel that I've sort of exhausted the subject.
So whenever Vee suggests that we really ought to go over and see the Rands again I can generally think up an alibi. Honest, I aint jealous of their twins. I'm glad they've got 'em. Considerin' Cecil, Sr., and all I'll say it was real noble of 'em. But until I can think up something new to shoot about twins I'm strong for keepin' away.
Then there are Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Kipp, but they're ouija board addicts and count it a dull evening when they can't gather a few serious thinkers around the dinin' room table under a dim light and spell out a message from Little Bright Wings, who checked out from croup at the age of six and still wants her Uncle Jerry to know that she thinks of him out there in the great beyond. I wouldn't mind hearin' from the spirit land now and then if the folks there had anything worth sayin', but when they confine their chat to fam'ly gossip it seems to me like a waste of time. Besides, I always come home from the Kipps feelin' creepy down the back.
So you could hardly blame Vee for welcomin' some new arrivals in the neighborhood, or for bein' so chummy right from the start. She asks the Rawsons over for dinner, tips Mrs. Rawson off where she can get a wash-lady who'll come in by the day and otherwise extends the glad hand.
Seems to be a nice enough party, young Mrs. Rawson. Kind of easy to look at and with an eye twinkle that suggests a disposition to cut up occasionally. Stanley is a good runnin' mate, so far as looks go. He could almost pose for a collar ad, with that straight nose and clean cut chin of his. But he's a bit stiff and stand-offish, at first.
"Oh, he'll get over that," says Vee. "You see, he comes from some little place down in Georgia where the social set is limited to three families and he isn't quite sure whether we know who our grandfathers were."
"It'll be all off then if he asks about mine," says I.
But he don't. He wants to know what I think of the recent slump in July cotton deliveries and if I believe the foreign credits situation looks any better.
"Why, I hadn't thought much about either," says I, "but I've had a good hunch handed me that the Yanks are goin' to show strong for the pennant this season."
Stanley just stares at me and after that confines his remarks to statin' that he don't care for mint sauce on roast lamb and that he never takes coffee at night.
"Huh!" says I to Vee afterward. "When does he spring that jolly stuff? Or was that conundrum about July cotton a vaudeville gag that got past me?"
No, I hadn't missed any cues. Vee explains that young Mr. Rawson has been sent up to New York as assistant manager of a Savannah firm of cotton brokers and is taking his job serious.
"That's good," says I, "but he don't need to lug it to the dinner table, does he?"
We gave the Rawsons a week to get settled before droppin' in on 'em for an evenin' call, and I'd prepared for it by readin' up on the cotton market. Lucky I did, too, for we discovers Stanley at his desk with a green eye-shade draped over his classic brow and a lot of crop reports spread out before him. Durin' the next hour, while the girls were chattin' merry in the other corner of the livin' room, Stanley gave me the straight dope on boll weevils, the labor conditions in Manchester, and the poor prospects for long staple. I finished, as you might say, with both ears full of cotton.
"Stanley's going to be a great help--I don't think," says I to Vee. "Why, he's got cotton on the brain."
"Now let's not be critical, Torchy," says Vee. "Marge told me all about it, how Stanley is a good deal worried over his business and so on. He's really doing very well, you know, but he can't seem to leave his office troubles behind, the way you do. He wants to make a big success, but he's so afraid something will go wrong----"
"There's no surer way of pullin' down trouble," says I. "Next thing he knows he'll be tryin' to sell cotton in his sleep, and from that stage to a nerve sanitarium is only a hop."
Not that I tries to reform Stanley. Nay, nay, Natalia. I may go through some foolish motions now and then, but regulatin' the neighbors ain't one of my secret vices. We allows the Rawsons to map out their own program, which seems to consist in stickin' close to their own fireside, with Marge on one side readin' letters about the gay doin's of her old friends at home, and Stanley on the other workin' up furrows in his brow over what might not happen to spot cotton day after tomorrow. They'd passed up a chance to join the Country Club, had declined with thanks when Vee asked 'em to go in on a series of dinner dances with some of the young married set, and had even shied at taking an evening off for one of Mrs. Robert Ellins' musical affairs.
"Thanks awfully," says Stanley, "but I have no time for social frivolities."
"Gosh!" says I. "I hope you don't call two hours of Greig frivolous."
That seems to be his idea, though. Anything that ain't connected with quotations on carload lots or domestic demands for middlings he looks at scornful. He tells me he's on the trail of a big foreign contract, but is afraid its going to get away from him.
"Maybe you'd linger on for a year or so if it did," I suggests.
"Perhaps," says he, "but I intend to let nothing distract me from my work."
And then here a few days later I runs across him making for the 5:03 with two giggly young sub-debs in tow. After he's planted 'em in a seat and stowed their hand luggage and wraps on the rack I slips into the vacant space with him behind the pair.
"Where'd you collect the sweet young things, Stanley?" says I.
He shakes his head and groans. "Think of it!" says he. "Marge's folks had to chase off to Bermuda for the Easter holidays and so they wish Polly, the kid sister, onto us for two whole weeks. Not only that, but Polly has the nerve to bring along this Dot person, her roommate at boarding school. What on earth we're ever going to do with them I'm sure I don't know."
"Is Polly the one with the pointed chin and the I-dare-you pout?" I asks.
"No, that's Dot," says he. "Polly's the one with the cheek dimples and the disturbing eyes. She's a case, too."
"They both look like they might be live wires," says I. "I see they've brought their mandolins, also. And what's so precious in the bundle you have on your knees?"
"Jazz records," says Stanley. "I've a mind to shove them under the seat and forget they're there."
He don't though, for that's the only bundle Polly asks about when we unload at our home station. I left Stanley negotiatin' with the expressman to deliver two wardrobe trunks and went along chucklin' to myself.
"My guess is that Dot and Polly are in for kind of a pokey vacation," I tells Vee. "Unless they can get as excited over the cotton market as Stanley does."
"The poor youngsters!" says Vee. "They might as well be visiting on a desert island, for Marge knows hardly anyone in the place but us."
She's a great one for spillin' sympathy, and for followin' it up when she can with the helpin' hand. So a couple of nights later I'm dragged out on a little missionary expedition over to Honeysuckle Lodge, the object being to bring a little cheer into the dull gray lives of the Rawsons' young visitors. Vee makes me doll up in an open face vest and dinner coat, too.
"The girls will like it, I'm sure," says she.
"Very well," says I. "If the sight of me in a back number Tuck will lift the gloom from any young hearts, here goes. I hope the excitement don't prove too much for 'em, though."
I'd kind of doped it out that we'd find the girls sittin' around awed and hushed; while Stanley indulged in his usual silent struggle with some great business problem; or maybe they'd be over in a far corner yawnin' through a game of Lotto. But you never can tell. From two blocks away we could see that the house was all lit up, from cellar to sleepin' porch.
"Huh!" says I. "Stanley must be huntin' a burglar, or something."
"No," says Vee. "Hear the music. If I didn't know I should think they were giving a party."
"Who would they give it to?" I asks.
And yet when the maid lets us in hanged if the place ain't full of people, mostly young hicks in evenin' clothes, but with a fair sprinklin' of girls in flossy party dresses. All the livin' room furniture had been shoved into the dinin' room, the rugs rolled into the corners, and the music machine is grindin' out the Blitzen Blues, accompanied by the two mandolins.
In the midst of all this merry scene I finds Stanley wanderin' about sort of dazed and unhappy.
"Excuse us for crashin' in on a party," says I. "We came over with the idea that maybe Polly and Dot would be kind of lonesome."
"Lonesome!" says Stanley. "Say, I ask you, do they look it?"
"Not at the present writing," says I.
That was statin' the case mild, too. Over by the music machine Dot and a youth who's sportin' his first aviation mustache--one of them clipped eyebrow affairs--are tinklin' away on the mandolins with their heads close together, while in the middle of the floor Polly and a blond young gent who seems to be fairly well contented with himslf are practicin' some new foxtrot steps, with two other youngsters waitin' to cut in.
"Where did you round up all the perfectly good men?" I asks.
"I didn't," says Stanley. "That's what amazes me. Where did they all come from? Why, I supposed the girls didn't know a soul in the place. Said they didn't on the way out. Yet before we'd left the station two youths appeared who claimed they'd met Polly somewhere and asked if they couldn't come up that evening. The next morning they brought around two others, and some girls, for a motor trip. By afternoon the crowd had increased to a dozen, and they were all calling each other by their first names and speaking of the aggregation as 'the bunch.' I came home tonight to find a dinner party of six and this dance scheduled. Now tell me, how do they do it?"
"It's by me," says I. "But maybe this kid sister-in-law of yours and her chum are the kind who don't have to send out S. O. S. signals. And if this keeps up I judge you're let in for a merry two weeks."
"Merry!" says Stanley. "I should hardly call it that. How am I going to think in a bedlam like this?"
"Must you think?" says I.
"Of course," says he. "But if this keeps up we shall go crazy."
"Oh, I don't know," says I. "You may, but I judge that Mrs. Rawson will survive. She seems to be endurin' it all right," and I glances over where Marge is allowin' a youngster of 19 or so to lead her out for the next dance.
"Oh, Marge!" says Stanley. "She's always game for anything. But she hasn't the business worries and responsibilities that I have. Do you know, Torchy, the cotton situation is about to reach a crisis and if I cannot put through a----"
"Come on, Torchy," breaks in Vee. "Let's try this one."
"Sure!" says I. "Although I'm missin' some mighty thrillin' information about what's going to happen to cotton."
"Oh, bother cotton!" says Vee. "It would do Stanley good to forget about his silly old business for a little while. Look at him! Why, you would thing he was a funeral."
"Or that he was just reportin' as chairman of the grand jury," says I.
"And little Polly is having such a good time, isn't she?" goes on Vee.
"I expect she is," says I. "She's goin' through the motions, anyway."
Couldn't have been more than 16 or so, Polly. But she has a face like a flower, the disposition of a butterfly, and a pair of eyes that shouldn't be used away from home without dimmers on. I expect she don't know how high voltage they are or she wouldn't roll 'em around so reckless. It's entertainin' just to sit on the side lines and watch her pull this baby-vamp act of hers and then see the victims squirm. Say, at the end of a dance some of them youths didn't know whether they was leadin' Polly to a corner or walkin' over a pink cloud with snowshoes on. And friend Dot ain't such a poor performer herself. Her strong line seems to be to listen to 'em patient while they tells her all they know, and remark enthusiastic at intervals: "Oh, I think that's simp-ly won-n-n-nderful!" After they'd hear her say it about five times most of 'em seemed to agree with her that they were wonderful, and I heard one young hick confide to another: "She's a good pal, Dot. Understands a fellow, y'know."
Honest, I was havin' so much fun minglin' with the younger set that way, and gettin' my dancin' toes limbered up once more, that it's quite a shock to glance at the livin' room clock and find it pointin' to 1:30. As we were leavin', though, friend Dot has just persuaded Stanley to try a one-step with her and I had to snicker when he goes whirlin' off. I expect either she or Polly had figured out that the only way to keep him from turnin' off the lights was to get him into the game.
From all the reports we had Polly and Dot got through their vacation without being very lonesome. Somehow or other Honeysuckle Lodge seems to have been established as the permanent headquarters of "the bunch," and most any time of day or night you could hear jazz tunes comin' from there, or see two or three cars parked outside. And, although the cotton market was doing flip-flops about that time I don't see any signs of nervous breakdown about Stanley. In fact, he seems to have bucked up a lot.
"Well, how about that foreign contract?" I asks reckless one mornin' as we meets on the train.
"Oh, I have that all sewed up," says Stanley. "One of those young chaps who came to see Polly so much gave me a straight tip on who to see--someone who had visited at his home. Odd way to get it, eh? But I got a lot out of those boys. Rather miss them, you know."
"Eh?" says I, gawpin' at him.
"Been brushing up on my dancing, too," goes on Stanley. "And say, if there's still a vacancy in that dinner dance club I think Marge and I would like to go in."
"But I thought you said you didn't dance any more?" says I.
"I didn't think I could," says Stanley, "until Dot got me at it again the other night. Why, do you know, she quite encouraged me. She said----"
"Uh-huh!" says I. "I know. She said, 'Oh, I think you're a wonderful dancer, simp-ly won-n-n-n-derful!' Didn't she now?"
First off Stanley stiffens up like he was goin' to be peeved. But then he remembers and lets out chuckle. "Yes," says he, "I believe those were her exact words. Perhaps she was right, too. And if I have such an unsuspected talent as that shouldn't I exercise it occasionally? I leave it to you."
"You've said it, Stanley," says I. "And after all, I guess you're goin' to be a help. You had a narrow call, though."
"From what?" asks Stanley.
"Premature old age," says I, givin' him the friendly grin. _